I
I am…
I mean I have chronic depression.
For many years, I thought there was something wrong with me. I would start things I couldn’t finish. I would make friends I couldn’t keep. I would commit to a healthier lifestyle that I would eventually neglect and trade in for a sedentary binge. I make promises I can’t keep. My depression is a cycle that I can’t seem to break free from.
My depression is eating until I can’t move and at the same time starving myself until I pass out. It’s overly emotional because the numbness that resides in my chest scares me. It’s wanting to be left alone and yet still wanting someone, anyone to care. My depression is living in my bed for weeks. So no I haven’t showered or changed clothes. My depression smells. I smell.
It is self-sabotage. It is fits of rage, unjustified anger and isolation.
My depression hates my success. It hates my happiness. Every time I find joy….my depression locates the only cloud in the sky to rain on my parade. My depression sneaks up behind me the minute I feel accomplished, and yet somehow lulls me to bed. It is insomnia and staring at the ceiling for hours as it tells me of my mistakes.
My depression is having my dogs stare at me for days wondering when I will walk them. Will I wake up to feed them? Do I care that their water bowl is dry? I see it their eyes, they question if I care. I wonder if I care.
My depression is that I am okay because I need to be…I want to be not that I am. Feeling ‘fine’ always escapes me. My depression lies. It lies to my friends, family, and to me. My depression is actually quite funny, you see…It leaves me be for short periods. I feel victorious. I emerge and make haste strides to my goals…but right before I cross that checkered finish line. My depression reveals that it was just waiting for me.
It is watching nostalgic cartoons and shows endlessly to feel something familiar. It is vast and empty. It consumes me. It follows me. I feel hopeless. I feel weak. I feel crazy.
It is social network addictions that have gone haywire because I don’t want to deal with my thoughts. I don’t want to be reminded of my past, I don’t want to think about the future, but I can’t be present. I must escape. It’s getting lost in other people’s problems just so I don’t have to address my own. It’s going out frequently to leave the emptiness of my room. Yet my depression is loneliness at social engagement.
My depression convinces me no one really loves me. That everyone around me is exhausted of my existence, its pity not love that keeps them around. In the midst of my depression, I never remember our good times. I forget where I am trying to go in life. I never remember the point of it all. It is a stream of thoughts that are never-ending of my inadequacy. …and these words are even 10th of what I experience.
I
I am
I mean I have chronic depression…
